Michelle Obama Painting

Utilizing painting, drawing, and printmaking techniques, my work examines the personal and universal exchanges found in contemporary portraiture, yet through expressive color, luminosity, and gestural mark marking, dislocates portrait painting from historical and hierarchical structures. I desire to startle the viewer. The notion of the graphic impulse, with its raw, immediate, and unflinching emotional extremes delivering a directness and frankness, characterizes my work. Abstracted marks are cumulative, each stratum revealing visceral and emotional intensities. I attempt to draw the viewer inward to experience an encounter with the subject and the collective consciousness.